I was sure I read an AP news brief a day or two ago saying that Sen. John McCain, former P.O.W. who was tortured in captivity by the Vietnamese, who has long spoken out loudly against torture — has now urged the President to veto a bill which would limit the CIA’s ability to use torturous techniques, i.e., “waterboarding.”
I was right. In the sound and fury that the media idiots and Right Whine — I mean Right Wing! — dopes paraded around regarding the New York Times’ story about McCain and the sexy lobbyist, most people failed to recognize McCain’s dramatic hypocrisy. Yes, I called it hypocrisy.
If you don’t believe McCain’s reversal was real, I invite you to read Arianna Huffington’s discussion of the whole issue.
On a related note, I call your attention to a column written in our local newspaper. It was written by a local veteran who served as an officer in Vietnam at the height of the war there. He says in his column that certainly waterboarding was torture, certainly he and other officers were trained to torture Vietnamese prisoners, and anyone who tries to pass the technique off as permissible is abandoning all that America stands for and is way off base.
Wake up, America. Stop listening to the politicians. Start paying attention and making the media pay attention to all that’s going on behind the sensationalistic headlines.
Ah, well, what do I know? I’m just a guy who reads the papers.
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